Soggy, Stinky Towels

We have pretty lived at the pool this summer.

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for buying a house in a neighborhood with a private pool. Really, it has made our first summer back in the sweat-inducing heat much, much more comfortable.

The only problem is that I am washing a load of beach towels everyday. And sometimes twice a day. I am not kidding people. It's really starting to get to me.

So when I saw $4 beach towels at Targhetto, I snatched some- and then I thought of this lady's last post, and thought hmmm... wouldn't it be awesome-spice if I made them something that wouldn't get left in a smelly pile in the corner of the bathromm (or worse, the car)?

And thus the birth of the Towel-Dress Thingys and the Towel-Almost-Robe.

Please, don't try to reuse these names. They are being copyrighted as we speak.




Now, I was going to just buy the pattern from Dana, but her patterns only went up to size 5t, and Porter-Pot is in the final stage of that size, so I thought: hey, I'll just wing it.

The girlies were fairly simple. Just wrap and and add straps.




Porters... eh. I did not add a tie to the robe since I knew Porter would just end up using it as a zipline from the girls' top bunk down to their dresser (true story, by the way. Except he used three different belts tied together).

And since all I did was cut and sew, then cut and sew... and then cut a bit more and sewed a lot more, it ended up resembling Japenese warrior's attire. But, hey, he loves it.





And I didn't have any velcro, so that's why my kids are clutching their new towel-thingies shut in every picture. Don't judge me and my lazy sewing, I figured that they probably wouldn't use the velcro to keep them closed anyways.

Little Miss Adi wanted to demonstrate how well her Towel Dress-Thingy works on our tree swing.




And when we are done swimming, the kiddos can wear these home, so at least they wont grow mold in the car anymore.




That's the plan, anyway.

Please allow me to introduce...

A wicked vampire bride, an oh-so-glamorous prom queen and an unmasked Batman.


Well, I finally did it. I dragged the kiddos out into 50 degree weather without proper layers (umm, you wouldn't be able to see their hand-tailored costumes if they had on jackets for warmth) today.

Fortunately for them the little shoot only lasted 5 minutes. Unfortunately for me, the shoot only lasted 5 minutes.

I didn't get nearly as many shots as I wanted, but it was cold and Porter kept stripping off his costume...

Oh, and did I mention that I forgot to charge my camera's battery so as soon as I turned it on "low battery" was flashing at me?

Duh.

Anywho, scroll on down to see the chillens in all their glory. Oh, and please forgive me for the number of photos, but I couldn't choose favorites!


First off, there is Mini-Batman.

He would not wear his mask. No amount of coaxing could get him to leave it on at all.


And here he is flexing his muscles for the camera.


Don't you love his "flexing face"?



I designed and made the main part of Mr. Porter Pot's costume. I didn't like any of the patterns I could find in stores (can you say girly-man?), Not that his costume turned out any better, but at least I know I did it!

I did, however, use a pattern for the boots and the belt. And those three things took me longer to sew than the whole rest of the outfit.

Go figure.



Here is Little Miss Vampire Bride (who refuses to wear her vampire teeth that we've spent the last two months searching for). The editing on this photo is actually a bit freaky.


I also designed and made this little outfit. The veil is not at all how I imagined it, but Miss Nae likes it, so I guess I can be satisfied.


She HAD to have fake blood. HAD TO HAVE IT.


Don't you love the necklace?





And now, Miss Piper Pauline as the Prom Queen.



Another messed-up Courtney Original. This is actually the second dress that I made for her. The first one was too light.

But I had a bit of a difficult time figuring out the waist on this second one.


Piper loved posing for this one. She wants to be a model when she grows up.

I hope she doesn't really pursue that dream.


Pip is the only one of the three who really loves her costume and does not want to take it off. Ever.


This is why I love this little punk-rock-Prom-Queen:


Now, keep your fingers crossed for me that these costumes will make it until Halloween and won't get lost or destroyed.

A little Christmas Sewing

The girlies are getting an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas this year (from Santa, of course).

I wanted to make them a cutsie, retro-y kind of apron to go with it.

I surfed the net and found a couple of different aprons that I liked, then just starting cutting and sewing (once again, braving the world of no patterns). Then I saw a cute lil' chef's hat, and thought to myself, "I can do that."

I did. But not before messing up a few times.

Unfortunately since these babies are for the upcoming holiday season, I haven't been able to see how they'll look on the girls, but I think that so far, I'm liking them.

Now I still need to make little matching pot-holders...

The best seat in the house

This is Porter's favoritest place in the house.

It also happens to be my next lil' project.

My momma got it from a garage sale, but after stubbing her toe on it for the millionth time, she gladly passed it on to my greedy hands.

So I was trying to take some "before" pics tonight (shocking, I know, that I actually remembered this time), but Mr. PG refused to move his cute lil' booty out of it.

And I think I like it this way better.

Mamma's New Table

Another wonderfully-re-done project from my dear old friend, the D.I. (that is, as long as you don't look too closely). $15 big ones for the table, and $5 a piece for the chairs.

What's even better is that I got the paint for 1/2 price at Wally-World, so this set ended up costly a mere $30.

Wahoo!

Now the kiddos have a place to color in the family room and I have a place to sew (instead of on the ironing board. That got a little messy).

Oh, and the bird cage (originally a sage green) was also from good-ole Deseret.